


Pwned

by Lakritzwolf



Category: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Co-workers, Crack, Gen, Prank Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27565717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lakritzwolf/pseuds/Lakritzwolf
Summary: The office prank war between Adam Jensen and Frank Pritchard nobody asked for.
Relationships: Adam Jensen & Francis Pritchard
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	Pwned

**Monday**

“Pritchard.”

Pritchard looked up from his screen, and at Jensen who was standing in the door to the Tech Lab, looking uncomfortable.

“Is there a particular reason you are loitering in the doorframe, Jensen?”

“I need help.”

“Well, well.” Pritchard folded his hands onto his desk. “And what can this humble, unworthy cybersecurity peasant help you with, Jensen?”

“I’m having troubles with the intellicam feed.” Jensen entered the lab now, his arms crossed. “But I think you’d have to access my computer for that.”

“I do, and I am already on it.”

“You know, Pritchard, I’m really not comfortable knowing you can access my data anytime you want.”

Pritchard looked up from his screen. “Don’t you trust me?”

“About as far as you can throw a piano, Pritchard.”

“You hurt me, Jensen.” Pritchard looked at the screen again, typing busily. Then he froze, frowned, typed some more, and finally leaned back with a shake of his head.

Jensen crossed his arms. “Found anything yet?”

“It seems we got ourselves a PEBCAK error.”

“A what?”

“A PEBCAK error. Don’t worry Jensen, those are quite common.” Pritchard leaned forward again and busied himself with his keyboard and his mouse. “Looks like someone,” his eyes flicked up at Jensen, and back to his screen, “has been trying to set up a new password routine that went haywire. I’ll have this fixed in no time.”

The clicking of Pritchard’s keyboard was the only sound in the room apart from the soft humming of the serverbanks.

“Oh and by the way,” Pritchard said after a moment, “trying to change passwords without the proper admin rights will get you locked out of the system anywhere. So for future reference, if you need your security measures tightened talk to someone who knows what he’s doing.”

Jensen didn’t reply and just stared at the wall while Pritchard worked on the problem.

“All done,” Pritchard said after about five minutes. “And don’t worry Jensen, I won’t let this get back to you. I’ll just log this as a PEBCAK error. I have a lot of those, it will just disappear in the crowd.”

Jensen took a deep breath. “Thanks,” he said, looking like he had swallowed a toad.

“You’re welcome,” Pritchard replied, toothrottingly sweet. “Anytime. You know I love nothing more than drop everything I am doing to help our favourite Head of Security out of one mess or another.”

Jensen huffed, and turned around. As he reached the door however he stopped and looked at Pritchard over his shoulder. “PEBCAK error?”

Pritchard looked up with a hardly suppressed smirk. “It stands for Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard, Jensen.”

Jensen lifted one eyebrow.

“You, Jensen.You are between chair and keyboard.” Pritchard looked back at his screen. “And it is you who is causing me grief.”

“Are you calling me an error?” Jensen asked, his voice almost a growl.

“I am not going to grace that with a reply,” Pritchard said dryly without looking up again.

Jensen exhaled forcefully through his nose, and closed the door to the Tech Lab behind him maybe a little too hard.

* * *

**Tuesday**

Equipped with a coffee and a Cyberboost bar Pritchard entered his office again. He avoided the cafeteria, especially at lunchtime, and only ever went there to fuel up on coffee.

He moved his mouse to wake up the screen, but nothing happened.

Pritchard frowned, moved the mouse again, but still nothing happened.

Ctrl+Alt+Del did the job and he entered his password with a frown. Even with the computer running again the mouse didn’t work, and while it wasn’t difficult to activate the touchscreen mode, it took a bit of fiddling with only keyboard shortcuts.

But even the internal troubleshooter couldn’t not find the problem. According to the hardware the mouse was fine. The cursor just did not move.

Pritchard crawled under his desk with an angry sigh and checked the cable. He pulled it out, plugged it back in again, and sat down in his chair - nothing. The mouse was dead.

“Fuck this,” Pritchard muttered under his breath, and grabbed the Cyberboost bar to shove it into his pocket before he left the Tech Lab to hunt for a new mouse. The hardware stores were in the basement next to the main server room, and it took him fifteen minutes to get there, unlock the store, find a new mouse, lock the door again, and wait for the slowest elevator this side of the Atlantic to get back to his office again.

Once back in his office he crawled under the desk again to change the mouse, and huffed out a relieved sigh when that one finally worked. He grabbed the old one, but as he was about to wind the cable around the mouse to throw it out, he happened to see the underside of that mouse.

A scrap of paper was taped over the laser sensor. It had a trollface drawn on it.

Pritchard gritted his teeth so hard it was audible and fell into his chair. “I’m going to fucking murder you, Jensen.”

* * *

**Wednesday**

After having spent several hours on checking vents, back doors, and emergency exits Jensen entered his office with a coffee and a stack of pocket secretaries containing various reports. He dropped them onto his desk, and looked down into the atrium for a moment before he rounded the corner of his desk. He sat down taking a sip of coffee, and almost did a spit take looking at his screen.

A collection of stickers was arranged around the screen; small, colourful ponies were neatly attached to the black plastic. In between the ponies was one with _Friendship is Magic_ written in pink, bold letters.

“Pritchard, you jerk.” Jensen put the coffee down and reached for the screen. Then he froze, looked at his hand, at the stickers, and at his hand again. He tried, but rubbing his artificial fingers against the stickers did nothing.

He extended the nanoblade in his right arm and gave it a thoughtful look, but these things cut through armour; a thin layer of plastic might as well be paper.

Jensen flopped into his chair and pressed a finger against his temple. “Malik?”

_“Jensen?”_

“Do you have a moment? I need… a hand, in my office.”

_“Uh… sure?”_

“Thanks.”

Five minutes later Malik entered his office, and Jensen could hardly meet her eyes as he pointed at his screen.

Malik snorted so hard she had to wipe the back of her hand across her nose. “Jensen, what the fuck?”

“It wasn’t me!” Jensen barked. “I don’t know who did this but my bet is on Pritchard, the jerk.”

“And…” Malik was chewing on her lip, pursing her lip, and biting it again. “What do you need me for?”

Jensen dragged a hand down his face. “I can’t take them off,” he muttered.

“Why is that?” Malik cleared her throat.

“Because I don't have fingernails!” Jensen all but yelled at her.

Malik lost it and burst out laughing. She almost doubled over, but after a few moments she took a few deep breaths, and proceeded to peel the stickers off Jensen’s screen.

“Thanks,” Jensen huffed out, not meeting her eyes.

“You’re welcome, Jensen! Anytime!” A barely suppressed snort, followed by a giggle. “You know, friendship is magic!”

“Oh fuck off, Malik,” Jensen muttered. “Please don’t make this office gossip.”

“My lips are sealed,” Malik said with a wink.

Jensen pinched the bridge of his nose with a groan as soon as she was gone.

“Pritchard you asshole. I will get you for this.”

* * *

**Thursday**

Frowning in concentration, Jensen tugged at the edge of the Cyberboost wrapper, and with the help of a corner of his nanoblade, he eventually managed to open the wrapper without tearing it. He carefully removed the bar itself, and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth as he carried the empty wrapper towards his desk. There he spread some paper towels on the surface, and produced a small jar and a spoon from his backpack.

And with a small, evil grin, he unscrewed the top of the jar containing pink glitter, and cautiously and carefully spooned some glitter into the empty Cyberboost wrapper. A bit of sticky tape and a few dabs of glue later, and Jensen looked at the glitterbomb in his hand with a satisfied smile. With the taped cut facing down it looked completely innocent, just a Cyberboost bar, waiting for someone to tear the wrapper open to take a bite.

Jensen kept his eyes on the feed of the security camera closest to the Tech Lab, and when Pritchard finally left his office, he made his way down there as fast as he could. He grabbed the Cyberboost bar on Pritchard’s desk and replaced it with the glitterbomb, and quickly headed back to his office.

***

Pritchard returned to his office with his usual lunch break coffee, extra large, extra strong. He sat down, took a quick sip of coffee, and picked up the Cyberboost bar next to his keyboard.

***

“JENSEN!”

Jensen looked up from his computer, and at Pritchard who was standing in the door to his office, completely dusted with pink glitter.

“Oh, Francis,” he said and smiled. “You should wear that more often, it suits you.”

“DO YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?!”

“I think it’s hilarious. What happened to you?”

“You know perfectly well what happened, Jensen!” Pritchard was giving him a death glare that would have felled a lesser man.

“Yeah well, it looks as if you’ve been glitterbombed.” Jensen leaned back and folded his hands on his chest. “I can give you the access codes to the storage room with the cleaning supplies.”

“I can do that myself, Jensen,” Pritchard hissed.

“Suit yourself.”

Pritchard spun around again, but cast Jensen another venomous look over his shoulder. “This isn’t over, Jensen.”

“Maybe you should write an apology note to the cleaning lady, Francis.”

Pritchard stormed off again, hands curled into fists. He almost ran into Carella who was walking up the stairs, and the latter ogled Pritchard with widening eyes.

“Christ, Prit-”

“One word and I’m going to fuck up your bank account and post pictures of dicks on each and every one of your social media accounts!” Pritchard barked at him.

“Jesus,” Carella muttered under his breath as he hastily stepped out of the way, and shook his head as he looked at the footsteps of pink glitter that followed Pritchard to the Tech Lab.

When Jensen left later that day, there the sound of a vacuum cleaner was still coming from the Tech Lab. A lopsided smile appeared on his face as he walked down the stairs.

* * *

**Friday**

“Here’s the report, boss.”

Jensen put down the pocket secretary on the desk and sat down. Opposite him, Sarif sat down as well and took the report, but only skimmed over it.

“I’ll read that later, Adam. I had to reschedule a meeting, so I’ll need to cut this short. In a nutshell?”

“Right.” Jensen took the pocket secretary and scrolled down towards the summary. “In a nutshell. We should be okay, but the drill I ran last week was a bit lacking, in terms of manpower. I think we need a few more hands on deck, boss.”

“Gotcha. Anything else?”

“Nothing major. I had a minor breach in one of the sub-basement storage cabinets and checked it out. Turns out, one of the cleaners was palming bottles of bleach. I sent a report on that.”

“So that’s what the police incident report was about. Sorry, I was a bit busy the last few days.” Sarif smiled at him. “Good job, Adam. I hope it wasn’t too awkward, dealing with the old boys from the precinct.”

“It was…” Jensen’s right arm spasmed, and the pocket secretary hit the ground next to his chair. “What the hell…?”

“Adam?”

Jensen’s right forearm shot up, and flipped Sarif a bird.

“Shit.” Jensen stared at his hand. “Boss, I’m sorry, that’s not…”

Sarif leaned back in his chair and tapped a forefinger against his chin, while Jensen stared at his hand and desperately tried to fold in his middle finger again, to no avail.

“Adam, is there something we need to talk about?”

“What?” Jensen looked at him, eyes widening. “No! I mean…” Then he closed his eyes again with a grunt. “Pritchard, I swear…”

Sarif emitted a thoughtful hum. “I think I need to have a talk with Frank, then.”

Jensen looked up from his right hand, still flipping a bird, and a dark smile appeared on his face. “I think you should, boss.”

***

Pritchard leaned back into his chair with a smirk, and crossed his arms. “That’ll teach you to fuck with me, Jensen.”

He took a sip of his coffee and cast a look around his office. Several hours of furious hoovering and a whole can of pressurized air applied to his keyboard had taken care of most of the mess, but he had left the cleaners an apology.

_I’m sorry, some asshole glitterbombed me._

The post-it was still sticking to the side of his screen.

He was just taking another sip of coffee when the door to the Tech Lab flew open and Jensen stormed in, flipping him off.

“Why, Jensen, that’s a bit rude, isn’t it?”

“Pritchard, make this stop or I swear you will regret the day you were born,” Jensen growled at him.

“And what makes you think I had anything to do with that?” Pritchard asked.

But instead of Jensen’s voice, the answer came from Sarif who stepped into the doorframe now. “Because that’s a little specific for a random augmentation malfunction, Frank, don’t you think?”

The smile fell from Pritchard’s face in less than a second, and his eyes widened. _Oh Fuck_ was written all over his face in bold, capital letters. Jensen took the expression in with a satisfied smile and a nod of his head.

Sarif crossed his arms, giving Frank a stern look. “Can I ask you why you’re hacking into Adam’s augmentations?”

Pritchard swallowed, but crossed his arms as well. “He glitterbombed me yesterday.”

Sarif dropped his arms. “He did what?”

“He filled an empty Cyberboost wrapper with pink glitter, glued it up again, and swapped it with the one on my desk I brought in for lunch!” Pritchard gestured around him. “I’ll never get rid of that shit again!”

Now Sarif looked at Adam, a faint frown on his face. “Adam?”

“He stuck a dozen or so My Little Pony stickers on my screen. And I had to ask Malik for help to get rid of them because…” He gritted his teeth. “Because I don’t have fingernails to peel them off.”

Pritchard snorted and covered the lower half of his face with his hand.

Sarif breathed out a weary, tired sigh, and looked at Pritchard again.

“I spent almost an hour trying to fix my mouse on Tuesday,” Pritchard said, his smile gone again. “And once I had finally replaced it, I saw that someone had glued a trollface over the sensor. As if I don’t have anything better to do!”

Shaking his head, Sarif looked at Jensen again.

“I had an IT problem and he called me an error in the system.”

“I can’t, with you two!” Sarif threw up his hands. “Seriously, how old are you?” He looked angrily back and forth between Pritchard and Jensen and shook his head.

Neither Jensen nor Pritchard met his eyes.

“Right. I don’t have time for this.” Sarif took a step towards the door. “So here’s what we do: On the third floor there’s a two-desk office standing empty. On Monday I’ll have both the security hub and Pritchard’s hardware moved there, and you will share an office for the rest of the month until you learn to act like adults around each other.”

“Boss…” Jensen said, while simultaneously, Pritchard said, “Sarif…”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Sarif said and turned around. “Whatever it is. I’ll check in on you Monday afternoon to see how you’re settling in.”

With that he was gone, leaving the two men standing in the Tech Lab who both looked like kicked dogs. After a moment they both looked up and exchanged a short, tortured look before Jensen left the Tech Lab in all but a run. Pritchard fell into his chair and buried his face in his hands with a deep, long groan.

* * *

**Monday**

Neither Pritchard nor Jensen acknowledged the presence of the other as they were setting up their hardware that morning, and the silence stretched on until they finally had everything up and running. Then they settled down at their desks, and stared at their screens.

“Sarif should be here any moment now,” Pritchard finally broke the silence that was so thick you could have cut it into cubes and carried it outside.

“Hm.” Jensen swivelled back and forth in his chair.

“Stop that, Jensen, it’s making me twitch.”

“Only if you stop fiddling with that pen. It’s driving me nuts.”

Another moment of heavy silence.

“What’s the date?” Jensen asked after almost ten minutes of more silence.

“Monday the third,” Pritchard replied tonelessly.

“It’s going to be a long month,” Jensen muttered and turned towards his screen.

Pritchard didn’t reply. He didn’t need to.

**Author's Note:**

> [Art by zelu!](https://twitter.com/zeluchan/status/1329035834603962368?s=20)


End file.
